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Tuesday, 11 June 2013

11th June 1933 - Mary to Terrick

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Dear Fitz (Summer is here & I now think of you as being all "Reppy" again) - I think you would look so smart in a royal blue polo jersey with the white "poly" bird bang across the front!! - thank you for very nice long letter - greatly appreciated - & post cards (talk about intriguing the post-man - it would have been family who would all have arisen at unearthly hours specially to read them before I got hold of them!!)- I'm afraid there's not much hope of us coming over - but I shall have to see what N thinks first - we haven't fixed anything so far. - I should love it - because you've told me how nice it is (because we've always considered it rather "hair-dressery" before - do you get many, metaphorical, hair-dressers?)- Perhaps if you just wrote her a line to tell her what it's like - to make her feel that it's "her" you want to come - & not because "I" can come if she comes with me - which she probably thinks - - although I keep on rubbing it in that it's not. - but see what you think. (I hope your letter, also, wasn't a little 'subtle propaganda'!) When would be the best time to come, if we did?I shall never be able to act because I'm far too self-conscious - but I wouldn't mind the great, imperturbable, charming Sir Terrick V.H. FitzHugh meeting me at the station in his Rolls Royce, one day, will you? I shall probably have Poly labels on my luggage & be in in last year's cotton frock - but you wouldn't mind that, would you? My elocution's just about enough to let me teach - & I love teaching, so that would be O.K. - only I'm afraid I shan't be able to get any pupils!Yesterday Jack, Mr Hod. & myself went up to Cambridge to the May races - we had lunch at Queen's College with cousin Verney & friend - saw all round everywhere - including several good bumps and arrived home about 12 - having stopped at Clock House, Welwyn on way back for coffee etc. - I've never seen one town containing such bevys of devastatingly handsome youth in my life - Jack drove through slowly, specially for my benefit!!!- Last week at the office - Mr Cullen, Katie & myself spent ¾ hour just deciding whether I could have this Saturday morning off or not - as Mr Cullen had also planned to go away! - the pettyness of it - in the end Katie said 'if I was good, I could go"!!!! - just think of it - the beastly little sneaky pig - one day, when someone with a little more sense than me, gets hold of her, she'll find she's bitten off more than she can chew!- I saw some very nice modern flats with flat-roofs the other day - which made me think of your house. - Another thing, you'll have to invent a hot towel rail off which towels can't slide - I spend hours picking up ours off the bathroom floor - just because the rail is so stupidly round & shiny.I'd like you to return one of those two photographs please - I don't mind which - but I must have one back - you've got too many as it is - & I don't want to put you to the, perhaps familiar, inconvenience of starting a fresh album!Norah & I spent a wonderful evening last Wednesday - we went down to the bungalow just by ourselves - sat on masses of cushions in the boat & ate gallons of strawberries & cream after a heavenly bathe - rowed up river & watched the largest moon I have ever seen come up behind black pine trees and shine across the river until about 12.o/c then paddled home, slept at the bung just by ourselves - had another gorgeous bathe before breakfast & then up to town - It was perfect - & last weekend I invested in a new bathing suit - bright emerald green with straps crossed at the back.- Anyway we spent Whit Sunday on the river and bathed all the time & it was greatly admired & I got quite brown all over, with a lovely white cross on my back & a white ring round my wrist where your bracelet went! I came home sitting on top of the car with my legs dangling through the sunshine roof - causing some disturbance on the Great West Road & giving several policemen palpitations! - It was gorgeous.Next weekend I'm spending with Norah & we go to the Tattoo on the Saturday. I do hope it's hot & fine - I also have to go to the dentist again sometime soon - it doesn't seem nearly as long as 3 months since I last went, does it?Life travels so quickly it swallows me up. I shall only feel I've started living properly when it's time to die - because I shan't leave the office for years & years & years - & there are such a lot of things I want to do, that I'm afraid I shan't have time before I'm too old! Katie looks like a 'Mummy' already.- It was funny your mentioning "Galatea" - I once took the part in a school play - all draped in a sheet with my face chalk white & when I came alive they just dabbed rouge on either cheek on top of it all - Consequently I looked like a toy soldier about the complexion & my gilt filet round my head went all squew because my hair wouldn't hold it up - & therefore I caused considerable merriment amongst the audience when I had to gaze into a mirror & remark in a soleful, awestruck voice "How beautiful I am!". - Heavens, what years ago that seems - I resurrected my two dolls "Elizabeth Anne" & "John Hiledace" from the loft this morning - & felt most ancient. I'm glad I seem older than I am - who did you say it to?How is Paul & his latest? - oh, I am longing to see you again - - I think the hardest thing to give up in this world is "worrying" - it confronts me every way I turn - & it's really not worth it, is it? - At the present Mummy worries me dreadfully - I've always thought if a thing were left to her it was absolutely sure of turning out right - & now she's asking me to help her & it seems all wrong & makes me want to run miles & miles away. No good God would have taken Daddy away from her like he did. She's just managed to put him behind her while she brought all four of us up - & now we're all growing independent and she has nothing to occupy her mind & longs for Daddy again - & is just going to pieces thinking about herself - & I'm so terribly inadequate - & so like her in feelings that I can't help much - But this is all beside the point & you're probably quite lost in understanding it - only it just came.- Write soon, LoveMary xxx